"Earnest, to me, is a bad word." Dean Wareham is reclining on a cream-colored couch in the offices of P-Vine, his Japanese record label, looking over a list of adjectives a popular Web site uses to describe his band, Luna. Curious, amused and slightly wary, he skims the list, eyebrows raised, quickly conceding that, sure, words like "dreamy," or even "spacey," might be fair assessments. But "earnest"? "I don't know. Whenever I hear that word it makes me think 'overserious,' like early U2 or something, and that's not us at all."

It's hard to tell if Luna is a "serious" rock band. At live performances, such as last week's gig at Harajuku's Astro Hall, the four-piece are often still and solemn. But then Wareham sings an almost nursery-rhyme-like stanza:

And now I realize I'm livin' like a trucker does